On one hand, at least we’re not dealing with a bum knee that gets injured over and over again, possibly plaguing him throughout his career.

On the other hand, we might be dealing with two bum knees, which is arguably even worse.

But that’s the pessimist’s view of things. That’s UFC President Dana White, waking up in the morning and putting his feet on the floor, just waiting for the bad news to hit him. I say we agree not to worry about knee injuries and shelved titles until we absolutely have to. After all, the first knee tweak obviously didn’t harm Pettis too much. Just look at what he did to Henderson, who up until Saturday night seemed about as likely to be armbarred as he was to sprout wings and fly off into the leather and exhaust-scented air of the Milwaukee night.

And so begins the Anthony Pettis Era, with a weirdly anticlimactic verbal tap that confused the hell out of us for about four seconds. Now that we’ve pieced together what happened, we move to the inevitable question that always follows after the title changes hands: now what?

I know what you’re thinking: T.J. who? Oh, right. The guy who got concussed at jiu-jitsu practice. What about him?

It’s not worth much now, but that was Grant’s title shot that Pettis jumped into. Grant gave it up because he had the good sense to know that brain trauma, whether suffered in training or a fight, isn’t something you want to mess with. That’s a good example set by Mr. Grant, but if the UFC skips over him in favor of an Aldo-Pettis clash of the champions, it will have unintentionally told its fighters that looking out for their long-term brain health is the worst career move they could make.

If that’s not reason enough to give Grant the first crack at Pettis, how about an appeal to the crazy notion that a champion should, you know, defend his belt at least once before challenging other champions? Just a thought.

Some other notes and observations on UFC 164…

Early stoppage not the story of Barnett-Mir

MMA fans love nothing more than arguing over whether a referee picked the exact right moment to halt the shelling and end a fight, but it’s possible we’re letting the debate overshadow the action in this one. Josh Barnett (33-6 MMA, 5-1 UFC) stormed out of the gates and put a quick hurt on Frank Mir (16-8 MMA, 14-8 UFC) in his return to the UFC. He was in the process of doing more or less whatever he wanted to when Mir went down and the ref jumped in. And yet, since Mir has a comeback win or two on his resume, suddenly it’s proof that any fight stopped before he’s snoozing on the canvas is a fight stopped too soon.

Could the ref have let that go a few more seconds? Sure. Would that have resulted in Barnett punishing Mir with a few murderous right hands from a dominant position? Probably. We don’t know for sure, but we shouldn’t let that uncertainty become the whole story.

The real takeaways here are 1) Barnett is still as frighteningly ferocious as ever, and UFC heavyweights better take note, and 2) Regardless of whatever asterisks Mir wants to put next to them, he’s still lost his past three fights. One of these men has a bright future in front of him in the UFC. The other should seriously consider whether he really wants to be the guy who stays too long at the party. It’s no fun when you have to be asked to leave.

Mendes getting harder and harder to ignore

It’s a tough situation. Chad Mendes (15-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) got his title shot, got knocked out, then got tossed back into the herd at 145 pounds with little more than a sympathetic shrug and a pat on the back. He had to know it would be difficult to make his case for another crack at Aldo’s belt, which might be why he’s cut such a trail of fire up through the ranks since then.

Not only did he become the first to convince Clay Guida (30-14 MMA, 10-8 UFC) that he’d been punched in the head enough for one night, he also notched his fourth straight KO or TKO win since the loss to Aldo. If that’s not good enough to put him back in the conversation, and soon, what would it take? Does he need to start making a really big deal about the fact that Aldo grabbed the fence to prevent a takedown right before the finish in their first fight? Because, honestly, he could if he wanted to.

After lengthy pursuit, Rothwell finally catches up with Vera

I’m still not sure what, exactly, we learned from watching Ben Rothwell (33-9 MMA, 3-3 UFC) pummel Brandon Vera (12-7 MMA, 8-7 UFC). Did we learn that Vera is not really a heavyweight? Because it seems like we knew that already. Did we learn that Rothwell has a hard time hitting a moving target, but can unleash scary power the moment you stand still long enough for him to get his missile lock on? Again, I feel like that’s old news.

Maybe we learned that testosterone use has become so normalized in the UFC that a massive 31-year-old heavyweight can get on it, and still the UFC’s commentators will see no problem with droning on and on about what great shape he’s in, what wonderful work he’s done in training, as if they’re daring you to try to break the spell of the alternate reality they’ve created, one where fighters show up magically fit on fight night and it doesn’t matter how they got that way.

But I guess we already knew that, too. What we obviously don’t know is what to do about it.

The real ‘Fight of the Night,’ somehow overlooked

The $50,000 bonus for the evening’s best duo might have gone to Hyun Gyu Lim (12-3-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) and Pascal Krauss (11-2 MMA, 2-2 UFC) for a bout that had all the finesse of a head-on collision, but in this writer’s humble opinion, the honor should have gone to Dustin Poirier (14-3 MMA, 6-2 UFC) and Erik Koch (13-3 MMA, 2-2 UFC). Call me a jiu-jitsu fanboy if you must, but any bout where the participants take turns with near fight-ending choke attempts – and that’s just the first round – is worth honoring with a little extra cheddar in my book.

It’s not that I don’t understand the UFC’s decision to reward Lim and Krauss. They stood there and played a game of “No, my head is harder!” that any fan with a love of violence and functioning set of eyes could appreciate. The back-and-forth battle between Poirier and Koch was slightly more nuanced, but no less impressive. They might not get the extra cash for that effort, but they at least deserve our respect.

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